was at school, but there was a portrait of him.
Evidently he resembled his father. The sketch represented him with the
same broad forehead, smooth, dense light hair, pale blue eyes under
eyebrows with a slight frown in them, and the charming mouth rather
fully curved, expressing an amiable and pleasure-loving nature. The boy
was good-looking, but not, Edith thought, as handsome as Aylmer.

The only other woman present was Lady Everard, a plump, talkative,
middle-aged woman in black; the smiling widow of Lord Everard, and well
known for her lavish musical hospitality and her vague and
indiscriminate good nature. She bristled with aigrettes and sparkled
with diamonds and determination. She was marvellously garrulous about
nothing in particular. She was a woman who never stopped talking for a
single moment, but in a way that resembled leaking rather than laying
down the law. Tepidly, indifferently and rather amusingly she prattled
on without ceasing, on every subject under the sun, and was socially a
valuable help because where she was there was never an awkward
pause--or any other kind.

Vincy was there and young Cricker, whose occasional depressed silences
were alternated with what he called a certain amount of sparkling
chaff.

Lady Everard told Edith that she felt quite like a sort of mother to
Aylmer.

'Don't you think it's sad, Mrs Ottley,' she said, when they were alone,
'to think that the dear fellow has no wife to look after this dear
little house? It always seems to me such a pity, but still, I always
say, at any rate Aylmer's married once, and that's more than most of
them do nowadays. It's simply horse's work to get them to do it at all.
Sometimes I think it's perfectly disgraceful. And yet I can't help
seeing how sensible it is of them too; you know, when you think of it,
what with one thing and another, what does a man of the present day
need a wife for? What with the flats, where everything on earth is done
for them, and the kindness of friends--just think how bachelors are
spoilt by their married friends!--and their clubs, and the frightful
expense of everything, it seems to me, as a general rule, that the
average man must be madly unselfish or a perfect idiot to marry at
all--that's what it seems to me--don't you? When you think of all the
responsibilities they take upon themselves!--and I'm sure there are not
many modern wives who expect to do anything on earth but have their
bills and bridge debts